{"id":71,"date":"2011-01-12T23:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T23:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2020-08-07T03:26:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T03:26:26","slug":"verizon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/2011\/01\/12\/verizon\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrier Wars Reborn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

iPhone has come to Verizon. Looking back, its success despite nearly four years of exclusivity to a carrier many see as inferior has been very impressive. But those days are over now. There are plenty of questions.\u00a0First, let\u2019s revisit the obstacles to this event presented here\u00a0last May<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simultaneous Voice and Data.<\/strong>\u00a0Being a CDMA phone, this product will not make calls and consume data\u00a0at the same time<\/a>. I really thought this was a deal breaker; perhaps it was for a while. But the Android onslaught, combined with the \u201cnot here yet\u201d status of LTE, likely forced Apple\u2019s hand. According to\u00a0this chart<\/a>\u00a0from Horace Dediu, iOS subscriptions on AT&T are plateauing. Apple needed to move. Get ready for AT&T to pound this difference in its iPhone ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Features and Services. <\/strong>Apple Outsider, last May:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

iPhone either works the same on Verizon as it does everywhere else, or not at all.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Phil Schiller<\/a>, January 11:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want the experience to be the same for every iPhone user.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Verizon\u2019s FAQ<\/a>\u00a0set off shovelware worries Tuesday morning, but we\u2019ve since learned that the Mobile Hotspot feature is simply a carrier-specific setting in the Settings app. You\u2019d better believe Verizon wanted to vandalize the home screen. Apple, unsurprisingly, won that round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The App Store is another interesting wrinkle. Verizon almost certainly wants a say in app approval \u2014 many assume AT&T has had such influence over the years \u2014 but the last thing Apple wants is for certain apps to only be available on one carrier. This was probably a point of contention leading up to the deal, but it\u2019s likely been resolved now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retail.<\/strong> The retail problem I cited is solvable, and Apple has had a long time to think about it. Ultimately, it was just time to end the wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Branding.<\/strong>\u00a0The only Verizon logo you\u2019ll be seeing on this phone is\u00a0in the status bar<\/a>, where \u201cAT&T\u201d used to be, in non-italic Helvetica Neue. They couldn\u2019t even get their signature V up there, and I bet they\u2019re pissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This whole development is, without question, big for both companies. Some people were surprised by Steve Jobs\u2019 absence; if those people can recall the last time Jobs took second stage at someone else\u2019s press event, I\u2019m all ears. But Apple did just about everything short of that by sending Tim Cook and<\/em> Phil Schiller to New York. This isn\u2019t a new product, but it is still a very big deal to Apple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s already plenty of fallout and speculation: Where are the plan prices? Where\u2019s the iPad? Will the next iPhone show up at the same time on Verizon as on AT&T?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What interests me the most is that we now have a straight up carrier war on our hands: the same exact product on two rival networks. This is decidedly different than the Android model, which has flooded the market with different phones, running different software, tied to different providers. You can\u2019t get a Nexus S, or a Droid Pro, or HTC Evo on your choice of carrier. AT&T and Verizon now get to compete, apples to apples (pardon the pun), for real. How many \u201cupgrade eligibility\u201d and cancellation fee tricks will come out of the woodwork now that a true threat of abandonment exists on both sides? How will Apple walk the tightrope of integration requests from each partner? How nasty are these commercials going to get?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grab your popcorn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

iPhone has come to Verizon. Looking back, its success despite nearly four years of exclusivity to a carrier many see as inferior has been very impressive. But those days are over now. There are plenty of questions.\u00a0First, let\u2019s revisit the obstacles to this event presented here\u00a0last May: Simultaneous Voice and Data.\u00a0Being a CDMA phone, this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}